


Starting over

by foggysundays



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Awkward Flirting, Episode: s04e17 It's a Terrible Life, Flirting, Flustered Dean, Hunters & Hunting, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 23:51:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11428833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foggysundays/pseuds/foggysundays
Summary: Promot fill!Zachariah is not happy with Dean´s continued refusal to say yes to Michael, so he refuses to restore Sam´s memories after the events in It´s a Terrible Life.Dean now has not only to deal with douchebag angels fighting to ride his ass, but also with a little brother that is very eager to prove himself as a hunter but has no idea what the hell he is doing.And... is Sam flirting with him?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You can find the prompt [here](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/123531.html?thread=43796875#t43796875)!
> 
> This story is not yet finished and while I have some idea, I´m not exactly sure where this is going right now or how long it´s going to be. But I´ll try to update as soon as possible :D
> 
> Enjoy!

Dean was standing in front of apartment 24b and trying to gather the courage to finally knock on the damn door. He had been pacing up and down the hallway for nearly 10 minutes already, unsure if being here was one of his best or one of his most idiotic ideas so far.

Not that he had much of a choice anyway. After spending the last twelve hours discarding one shitty idea after the other, he was pretty sure that this was the one option that gave him at least partial control of the situation without screwing everything up even _more_. Which was why Dean took another deep breath, pulled his shit together like he always did and raised a hand to knock. Just before his fist connected with the wood, the door was opened and his brother stared at him in amused disapproval. Well, not his brother exactly - Sam Wesson.

Fury rose in his chest once more. Fucking Zachariah and his fucking crusade to get him to agree to live the rest of his life as a freaking angel condom. Not gonna happen anytime soon. Too bad the douchebag wouldn’t take no for an answer and had refused to restore Sam´s memories if Dean didn’t  say yes. As if any Winchester had ever been susceptible to blackmail – Sam was still here, after all. Memories or not, this was still his _brother_ and Dean would do his damn best to get him to remember _and_ he would definitely _not_ need the arrogant angel prick for that.

“Did you plan on camping out here or would you rather come in?”

The hunter rolled his eyes and shouldered his way into the apartment, scanning the room out of habit and feeling something in his chest tightening at the obvious similarities to Sam´s flat at Stanford. Fuck.

“You want some water? I´m afraid my fridge is not really stocked up on anything healthier than beer.”

“Beer is _fine_.” Dean ignored the surprised look the kid shot him and followed him to the kitchen.

It was not his fault that Zachariah apparently had decided to make his alter ego into some sort of health-obsessed, pretty-boy corporate douchebag who had a really, really shitty taste in cars.

A freaking Prius. _Seriously_? Baby would never forgive him.

He accepted the offered beer and gulped down half of it in one go. Fuck, he had really needed that.

Sam was leaning against the counter, sipping his beer and looking at him strangely. “That whole ghost stuff really did a number on you, Smith. You look… different, for lack of a better word. You act differently, too. Are you sure you´re okay?”

Dean barely suppressed the laughter that threatened to bubble up, because of fucking course he was not okay. Not even close. Those freaking angels were still trying to ride their asses and now his only ally in this clusterfuck of a fight had lost his damn memories and was all but useless. Not only that, but this Sam was nothing more than a fledgling hunter, a fucking _newbie_ who had no freaking idea _what_ _the hell_ he was doing or what they were up against. That and the guy was way too enthusiastic about the whole supernatural shtick – the kid would probably run straight into a Vamp´s nest as soon as he got the chance.

Dean couldn’t say any of that, of course. It was one thing to believe in ghosts when you were confronted with one, but a whole other ballpark to believe some freak who insisted on being your long-lost forgotten brother and told you to run because Lucifer himself wanted to wear your body like an Armani suit. Yup, that would _not_ go over well. So Dean did what any sensible person in his shoes would have done and pulled a good old Winchester. “I´m fine, Sam. Peachy, really. Just thought that since we´ll be hunting monsters and ghosts from now on, I should probably ditch the sensible shoes and expensive suits. Plus, chicks dig the whole rugged badass-look, trust me.”

Sam still eyed him somewhat skeptically, but then shrugged and motioned for him to follow him to the living room.

“I´m really glad you called me, by the way. I would have hated to dig into this whole supernatural crap all by myself… and we´ve already proven that we make a great team.” Sam threw him one of his patented puppy-eye-looks and fuck, they were still as effective as ever. They huddled together in front of Sam´s laptop and his sorta-but-not-really-brother pulled up a few webpages.

“Listen, I did a lot of thinking and I believe our best course of action is to ditch our apartments. My contract´s running out at the end of this month and I don´t think there´s a lot of cases around here anyway. We should also get a car and some weapons – that last part might be a little bit trickier, but I did some research and I got a basic idea of what to do now. We also really need more information on hunting techniques. I tried to find more on the internet, but there´s so much crap out there, it´s nearly impossible to decide what information is valid and what is utter bullshit, so we might need to find ourselves some sort of mentor? I don’t think anyone reckless enough to hunt monsters for a living would take it well if we were just to walk up to them and ask for help, but what do you think about those Ghost Facer guys? I managed to hack them and get their address, so why don’t we just drive over and listen to what they have to say? Get some idea of what exactly is out there?”

Dean needed a moment to fully register that Sammy was at the end of his little speech and then another one to wrap his head around the fact that his brother wanted to ask those nutcases for help. Oh, _hell_ no! Not when he had anything at all to say about that! Though it might just be worth the look on Ed´s and Harry´s faces….

It was nice to see that any version of Sammy was apparently a huge nerd and control freak. He should have expected him to go all out and prepare every step of the way – Hell, Wesson had even looked up possible car choices already.                 They were slightly better than that fucking Prius, but a long, _long_ shot from the glory that was his Baby.

Well, Sam wasn’t the only one that had come prepared. It had taken Dean ages to decide on a story he could stick to that held enough truth to be believable and was easy to remember, but also explained his sudden knowledge of supernatural lore and obvious fighting skills. If Sam was a bloody rookie, Dean himself needed to be able to access his full skillset without raising suspicions. He needed to be able to protect his little brother no matter what. So he had decided to stick to half-truths – a strategy that had served him well before and that allowed him to act like the hunter he was.

“Sam, I think there´s a few things you should know before we go into this. I haven’t been totally honest with you up until now and I´m sorry if I hurt you because of that. I did it to protect you and keep you out of the life, but since you´re so hard set on becoming a hunter yourself…. I´m… – Well, I grew up as a hunter. My dad is in the business and he taught me everything he knows – fighting, lore, runes, you name it. Hell, I´m freaking fluent in Latin and know bits and pieces of a few other ancient languages no sane person has ever even heard of. I dropped out of hunting once I was old enough, went to college, tried to be normal. Well, turns out that once you know enough about that shit, it´s going to haunt you – literarily and figuratively. And since you´re going to get yourself killed if you´re out there alone, I decided it´s time to face the truth and jump back in. I´m a hunter and I´ll always be one, stupid to think otherwise. So, yeah – there´s no need for some mentor or anything. Believe me, I got that one covered. Same goes for the car and the weapons. I can teach you. Show you the ropes and all that jazz – if you still want to, that is.”

Sam stared at him for a long moment, then he groaned and sank back into the sofa cushions. “God, this makes _so much sense_! I already thought it odd that you were so calm about all of this. And dude, you we´re great at handling that spirit!” Yeah, no – he had _totally_ _sucked_ at that, but he wasn’t about to correct Wesson. “You should have told me, though. Would have spared us a lot of research you apparently didn’t even need, but I can understand why you did it.” Wesson eyed him while he took another pull from his bottle and then nodded. “Yeah, dressed up like this, I can totally see you running around and ganking some spirits. This suits you, you look way more comfortable in your skin when you are dressed like this.” He grinned, “And all that health stuff? Part of the real Dean or just something you did to cover your old lifestyle?”

Dean scowled at him and got up to get another beer. “Give me some credit here, I wasn’t going to do some half-assed job at getting a new life! I actually worked on my Smith persona, it had to be convincing, had to fit in with those other business douchebags. But no way I´ll be able to survive on some fucking water and a salad leaf when I´m hunting again. You need actual food to keep up with that kind of lifestyle!”

“Alright, alright! Got that, no more salads!” His not-brother accepted the offered beer and leaned forward eagerly. “Well then: Hit me! Give me a rundown of what my life will look like from now on, what do I need to know?”

Dean sighed and launched into an extensive tale about the most common creatures and how to spot and kill them, talked about what their typical day would be like and what they had to look out for. He also took great care to hammer some of their most important code words and emergency procedures into the sasquatch´s head, knowing their luck they would be needing those rather sooner than later.

Jesus, he´d never had thought that he had to give the fucking the-truth-is-out-there-speech to his brother of all people. His life freaking sucked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I´m so sorry this took me so long! I got caught up in some other things and well.... but here it is and I´ll do my best to be write faster next time ;)  
> Enjoy!

Dean didn’t even try to hide his smug grin at Wesson´s awe when he came face to face with the Impala for the first time. He knew that Sam loved this car just as much as he himself did, even if his brother sometimes tried to pretend otherwise - Baby was the only steady home they´d ever had, she was family at this point.

Wesson, on the other hand, didn’t have Sam´s hang-ups about showing affection for a vehicle, the guy seemed genuinely enthusiastic, circling around the car and admiring her in a way that the younger hunter usually only reserved for his books.

“Just wait until you hear her purr – the most beautiful sound in the whole universe, I´m tellin’ ya.”

Wesson laughed at that. “She´s a real beauty. Are you ever gonna let me drive her?”

“Ha, you wish! _Maybe_ when I´m dead or unconscious. But hold your horses, you haven’t even seen all of her.”

Dean dragged him over to the backside of the Impala where he opened first the trunk and then the hidden compartment underneath, showing off his weapons collection with the air of a proud father introducing his first child.

“Here we go: Guns, rifles, different kinds of ammunition to go along with them and over there´s the knifes and daggers. We also got several stakes in here and I think there should be at least one sword lying around. That weird stuff on your right is mostly herbs and other ingredients for simple protection spells. Lots of spray paint, holy water, a shitload of salt – oh, and that stuff is dead man´s blood. Don’t drink it.” Wesson dropped the canister immediately with a look of utter disgust. “Same goes for everything else, by the way: Don´t touch it until you know how to handle it.” Dean sighed wistfully, “I´m still trying to get a grenade launcher from somewhere, one of those babies would be _awesome_ for blowing up Wendigos!... Well then, questions?”

Sam threw him a look that clearly said that he was currently mainly questioning his life choices – not that Dean could blame him, really. He was perfectly aware that this might seem a tiny bit crazy to a normal person. Or well, maybe a lot crazy.

“You´re not about to run off on me, are you?”

That one finally got him a laugh. “Nah, this is just _a lot_ to take in. Two weeks ago, you where nothing but some office guy and know you got a trunk full of illegal weapons? Might take me some time to wrap my head around that one. Are you seriously able to handle all of those?”

“Sure am. I told you, I grew up with this shit.”

“….. It will take me ages to be able to keep up with you, won´t it?”

Dean patted his back consolingly. “Don´t get your panties in a twist just yet, something tells me you´re a natural.”

 

* * *

 

 

Nine hours later Dean was steering the Impala through the evening traffic, his fingers quietly drumming along to some Maiden song while his eyes were busy flickering between the road and the sleeping form of his brother. Wesson looked just like Sammy in this moment: his face was smashed up against the window, mouth wide open and snoring lightly, a puddle of drool already accumulating on his sleeve. He also seemed to have inherited Sammy´s ability to bend the laws of physics to his will: his long legs were drawn to his chest, crammed up on the seat in a position that should be impossible for any functional limb without severe discomfort, but somehow it seemed to work for Sam. His brother was weird sometimes.

Dean was not really happy to take Sam out on a hunt just yet. They´d only had a bit more than a week to work on his fighting skills and knowledge of lore and the guy was by no means ready in his opinion. He was probably being unfair to Wesson, though – considering the short amount of time he had been training, Sam was already quite good. Probably his subconscious acting up or even just muscle memory, but Dean still couldn’t help but measure him up to Sam´s usual standards and there was simply no way he could live up to those.

When Bobby had called with a hunt two days ago, Dean had said yes anyway. It was supposed to be an easy one, a simple salt and burn, the perfect thing to get an idea of what Sam was capable of and to introduce him to what professional hunting should look like. He´d still be extra careful, though, he wouldn’t risk Sammy, not for anything and he´d rather spend a whole _week_ doing research than to run headfirst into a situation his amnesiac brother couldn’t handle.

The grumbling of his stomach reminded him that they hadn’t eaten since breakfast and that he really should start looking for a motel for the night.

Sam woke up just when he pulled into a motel parking about forty minutes later. The guy hadn’t moved a finger when Dean had stopped to grab some take-out, but now he was disentangling his limps and blinking owlishly at the unfamiliar surroundings.

“Dean? Where the hell are we?”

“East River Motel, about two hours from Kansas City. Nice to have you back, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Shut up, Winchester.” Sam´s bitchface was spot on - though the drool on his rumpled face destroyed the menacing effects somewhat.

Dean grinned at him. “I´ll go and get us a room, you grab our duffels and the food in the back and meet me outside!”

 

* * *

 

 

It felt weird to share a motel room with Sam. It was like living with a stranger.

Dean was not sure what exactly had triggered the feeling, they´d been living in the same apartment for more than a week after all, but somehow a motel room was different.

There was no brotherly banter, no inside jokes to make each other laugh, no complaining from Sam about how much of a slob he was. Wesson didn’t know how to react to Dean´s ribbing – it was not that the guy got pissed or anything, in fact he did his best to give as good as he got, but his answers and reactions were just plain _wrong_.

It was also all those other small rituals and unspoken rules that had developed over the years and that no one ever really had acknowledged before. Like the fact that Dean _always_ slept on the bed that was closest to the door or that whoever managed to score the first shower would leave just enough hot water to lull the other into a false sense of security and then _boom_ – ice water just when you needed to wash the shampoo out of your hair.

Wesson didn’t know how to answer when Dean called him a bitch, he didn’t know that he had to go for rock to beat Dean´s scissors whenever important decisions had to be made.

Dean would go for his usual routine and expect Sam to follow, to move in perfect sync with him, to react a certain way but right now his brother wouldn’t, he _couldn’t_ do any of that because this Sam didn’t share any of those memories, didn’t know their habits or their history. It was like living with the ghost of his brother and Dean honestly hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.

 

* * *

 

 

“The day ya idjits learn to call at a reasonable hour, I´ll dress up in a nurse costume and give Rufus a freakin´ lap dance!”

“Jesus, Bobby! Really not an image I needed in my head! You know I can´t pay for therapy.”

Dean hadn’t been able to stand the thought of staying in that motel room with Not-Sam for one minute longer, so he was currently leaning against the Impala in the motel parking lot, using the fact that Wesson had hit the shower after their usual evening work-out to his advantage. In this case, work-out was just a polite term for Dean doing his damn best to beat the shit out of the guy while Sam tried and mostly failed to block his attacks. He´d never really hurt the younger man, but training Winchester style had always meant bruises, an inhuman amount of sweat and at least one split lip. Dean had figured, that if this strategy had worked for them when they were kids, it wouldn’t fail them now either. He wasn’t Dad, though, he´d never push for more than Sam could handle. God knew the kid didn’t need to go through all of that for a second time in one lifetime.

“I caught you with your pants down often enough to know that this isn’t even close to the worst thing you’ve ever heard, boy. So stop bullshitting me and tell me how your idjit brother is doing!”

“Improving, I guess. Still a far cry from what he´s capable of with all his memories back online, but I´m pretty sure he won´t get us killed on our next hunt.”

“Pretty sure – Dean! You know as well as I do that ‘pretty sure’ isn’t gonna cut it. If you´re not able to handle it, I´m gonna call in some other guys!”

“We can and we will, god damnit! Sam might be off his game, but I still got all my marbles, Bobby. I´ll look out for the kid, okay?”

Bobby´s sigh sounded tired. “I know you will, Dean. You always have, but we both know that you´d do anything for Sam. As long as your brother is a damn rookie I need _you_ to be the reasonable one, you hear me? Don’t storm in all guns blazing, _think_ before you act, alright?”

“Yeah, I´ll do my best not to blow us up.”

“You better, I´m not about to bust your ass outta hell a second time, kid!”

“As far as I remember it was not you doing the busting.”

“Shut your cakehole, idjit. You hear from that damn angel of yours?”

Dean closed his eyes and growled in frustration. Yep, that was another pretty sore point right now. “Nothing. Not even sure he´s listening.”

“Balls!” Bobby sounded pissed as well. “I looked into the lore, called some people. Nothing useful up to now, angel mojo isn’t something a lot of people know about and since we don’t even know what that dick did to Sam… I´ll keep digging. You idjits stay safe and don’t be too hard on your brother, boy!”

“I taught him once I can do it a second time. We´ll be fine, Bobby.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to everybody who is reading this and especially to those of you who are leaving kudos and are taking the time to write a comment! I enjoyed reading every single one of them and it´s wonderful to hear that you are having as much fun reading it than I had writing it :D
> 
> Here´s another chapter, we´re slowly approaching the flirting part, but poor Dean still has to catch up a bit to make that happen

Sam cursed under his breath and dragged his arm over his face to wipe off the water on his forehead, but was probably only succeeding in getting dirt everywhere. He was cold, wet and hungry, they had been waiting here for _hours_ and his soaked hair kept falling into his eyes.

Dean on the other hand was apparently completely comfortable with the fact that they were currently crouching in the mud behind some bushes as they waited for their latest target to show up. The bastard was watching him with more than a hint of amusement and Sam just _knew_ that he´d be hearing stupid jokes for at least a week.

“How much longer are we going to stay here?”

The hunter shrugged. “If we´re lucky, the whole night. This is not computer science, dude. Monsters may have patterns and certain habits, but that doesn’t mean that they´ll stick to it every damn time.”

Sam grumbled and pushed his stupid hair back again.

“Aw, Rapunzel, is your hair getting in the way? I told you to cut it or at least to get some clips. I could also totally braid it for you, man.”

Asshole.

Just when he opened his mouth to respond, Dean held up his hand. His playful attitude had disappeared completely and he was all business now: shoulder tense, gun at the ready, his eyes roaming the shadow. Sam followed his gaze until he spotted the fuzzy outline of a giant Black Dog, its demonic red eyes gleaming in the darkness.

“Sam?” The question was soft but he knew exactly what Dean wanted. Taking a deep breath, Sam raised his own gun and aimed for the heart of the beast: it was supposed to be on the lower left chest, just behind the elbow of the front leg. They had practiced this so many times and he knew he was a decent shot by now, but shooting a living, moving thing was a whole different ballpark from shooting at fixed targets.

Beside him, Winchester had raised his own gun, ready to step in if Sam should fail. Not that he would, damn it.

He checked his aim again and then pulled the trigger, watched breathlessly as the huge animal faltered in his next step and then dissolved into dust and smoke, its pained yowl echoing through the forest.

“Attaboy!” Dean was already on his feet, helping Sam up as well and patting his back proudly. “Good job, dude! I knew torturing you for hours would pay off at some point.” The hunter´s grin was infectious and not for the first time Sam felt his stomach flip at the sight of those smiling eyes.

“C´mon, nerd, let´s get you home and into a damn shower. God knows we both need one.”

 

* * *

 

Hot water was raining down on him, washing away what felt like half a ton of mud and leaves, relaxing his muscles and making him even more tired. The adrenaline of the hunt had already disappeared and been replaced by warm sleepiness and all he really wanted was a bed – if he ever found enough energy to step out of the shower that was.

Sam sighed and turned the water off, after all Dean was still out there in all his muddy gloriousness and he didn’t want to subject the man to an icy shower after crawling through the dirt for half a night.

This hunt hadn’t even been that exhausting: no real fight, no digging up corpses, no being thrown around by some freaking ghost. They hadn’t been chased by a werewolf or – like on that one memorable night – by a crazy grandma with a shotgun. But the cold wetness of the mud seemed to have crawled into his very bones and he was dead on his feet.

He slipped into some old shirt and sweatpants and trudged back into the main room, immediately perking up when the wonderful smell of pizza hit him.

“Where the hell did you find pizza at two a.m.?”

Dean grinned at him and Sam wondered idly how on earth this man managed to look gorgeous even when he was covered in mud and had stuffed his cheeks with pizza like a hamster.

“I´m just that awesome, dude. Feel free to admire me!” He grabbed another piece and headed into the bathroom. “I´ll be back in ten minutes, touch my pizza and I´ll shoot you!”

God, food was awesome! Sam couldn’t hold back a moan when he dug into his first piece, a tiny bit of his energy coming back with every bite. Trust Dean to find food in some tiny backwater town in the middle of the night - that man was a freaking miracle worker sometimes, especially when it came to food and alcohol.

They´d been on the road together for nearly two months now and to say that life with Dean was interesting was an understatement. Sure, the beginning had been a bit awkward, but that was to be expected when you found yourself stuck in a car for hours on end with a co-worker you´d only known for a few weeks. But the longer they hunted together, the more comfortable Dean seemed to get.

The older hunter had an endless supply of stories that ranged from gruesome tales of past hunts to hilarious stories about both himself and his brother. Apparently, the guy was a hopeless klutz that stumbled from one embarrassing situation into the next and then had to be rescued by his older brother. Sam had laughed especially hard when Dean told him the story about a rabbit´s foot and how his little brother had lost his shoe in a sewer.

He didn’t dare ask what had happened to the guy, the pain in the other man´s eyes enough to keep him quiet for now.

Winchester was also an awesome teacher; he might act all rough and grumpy, but underneath the guy was patient and kind, only all too willing to repeat a lesson a hundred of times if it meant that Sam had perfected it afterwards. And thanks to that, he was improving fast: his shooting and knife fighting skills were already pretty good, but he´d still need to work on his hand-to-hand combat and on his handling of some of the more exotic weapons.

To Sam´s surprise, hunting was much more complicated than that. He had to learn how to do research and to separate the bullshit from the facts, how to pick locks and free himself from all sorts of bonds, how to interview witnesses, ask the right questions and get people to trust him no matter what role he was currently playing. Not to mention a shitload of lore and mythology, codewords and backup plans for all sorts of situation and also something that Dean called the Hunter´s codex, which was essentially a list of rules and behavioral guidelines on how to interact with other hunters.

It was a lot, it was exhausting and it was the best damn thing that had ever happened to him.

His thoughts were interrupted by the bathroom door opening and Sam looked up just in time to see a half-naked, still wet Dean emerging from a cloud of steam.

His mouth went dry.

This was another thing that had changed between them in the last few weeks. In the beginning, Winchester had been rather self-conscious - not shy, _nothing_ about Dean was shy, but there had been the acute awareness that they essentially were total strangers sharing a tiny room, and so both of them had taken to changing in the bathroom. But it hadn’t even taken a week until the older hunter had forgotten to grab some piece of clothing or another and had returned to the main room only partially dressed. Two weeks after that, he had ditched the sweatpants and was only sleeping in boxers and some old t-shirt and had also decided that undressing and changing in front of Sam was not a big deal after all.

It was sweet torture and Sam had caught himself staring at his mentor´s ass or chest more than once. He hadn’t even known that he was at least partially gay, could only remember girlfriends in his past, but the way his dick stirred at the sight of all that naked, freckled skin was certainly anything but heterosexual.

Problem was, Dean didn’t even seem to notice: the guy was either the world´s biggest tease or the most oblivious person he had ever encountered. He was also constantly touching Sam, crowding into his personal space and looking at him with much more affection than was appropriate for the short amount of time they´d known each other. But never, not once had there been anything close to desire in his eyes.

So yeah, Sam spent his days in a state of both total confusion and near painful arousal.

Apparently, Dean had decided to add to his misery tonight, because right now the man was only wearing a flimsy towel around his waist and Sam couldn’t look away from the tiny water droplet that crept all the way down the hunter’s neck to his muscled chest and stomach until it finally disappeared below his waistline. Jesus, in that moment he wanted nothing more than to follow that very same path with his tongue, to lick all the way down until he could finally find out if the bulge in those jeans was anything like he had imagined.

“Dude, quit staring! I know it´s not appropriate bro-behavior to walk around in a towel, but I totally forgot all my freaking clothes!” Dean sounded more amused than bothered by the staring and was obviously totally unaware of Sam´s current conflict. With an annoyed huff, he bent over his duffel bag and started rummaging around for clean clothes.

“We really need to find a laundromat asap, I´m nearly out of clean boxers and going commando on a hunt is just asking for the worst chafing incident in modern human history!” With that, he unceremoniously dropped his towel and wiggled into his underwear and a shirt, before turning around and eyeing Sam with open concern.

“Are you okay, buddy?”

Sam was wheezing and coughing, trying his best to dislocate the piece of pizza that had gotten stuck in his throat when Dean had started his reverse strip-show.

“Yeah…. Just – Pizza!” Thankfully, the hunter seemed to understand his butchered words and laughed at him.

“Try to eat more slowly, jerk. I´m way too tired to perform a tracheotomy on you to keep you from dying.” With that, he grabbed his own pizza and started to wolf it down while he cleaned his guns.

Sam took some careful sips of water to sooth his irritated throat and stared at his stupid dick in annoyance. He should probably stock up on some off-putting and abhorrent pictures – the last thing he needed was to pop an inappropriate boner whenever Dean was in close proximity.

Perfect, just freaking perfect.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone, as always it was a pleasure to read your comments and to know that you´ve enjoyed my writing!  
> I´m still fairly new to all of this and it´s super encouraging to see that I don´t totally suck at it :D  
> Luckily for you, the weather at my place sucks and since I can´t go outside, I had to find something else to do yesterday, so here you go: new chapter! Have fun!

“ _Vampires_.”

“Yep.”

“You´re bullshitting me.”

“Nope.”

“You mean there´s a bunch of sparkling bloodsuckers out there that can turn into bats and like to creep on teenage girls?!”

Dean laughed at him. “Jesus, Wesson! Don´t tell me you´ve read those crappy books? And no, none of that shit. No bats, no sparkling, no garlic-allergies. Just normal people with fangs and enough strength to tear you apart with their bare hands. Come on, I thought you listen to me when I tell you stuff!”

“You´ve never told me that vampires are a real thing! You´ve never even mentioned them!”

“Huh. Guess I forgot that one. Doesn’t matter, though, I´ll teach you how to kill them.” Dean´s grin turned predatory. “We´re gonna have so much fun!”

Sam scowled. He had lived with the hunter long enough now to know that this particular grin only ever ended in exhaustion and burning muscles for him. For all of Dean´s open disgust for everything that had to do with work out and exercise, when it came to fighting, the guy was vicious. It didn’t seem to matter that Sam had an obvious advantage in both muscle mass and body height, Winchester knocked him flat on his ass. Every. Single. Time. Sam´s only consolation was that Dean really had to work for it now – at the beginning of their training the hunter hadn’t even broken a sweat. It had been pathetic, really.

He rammed his fork into his salad, shoved some of it into his mouth and chewed violently. Dean raised one of his ridiculous eyebrows at his antics and started to unpack his burger.

“Basically, most of the things you´ve heard about vampires in modern pop culture is total crap. If you don´t wanna use something fancy, the only thing that kills them is beheading. I usually go for a machete, so we´re gonna practice with one before I take you out there. Sunlight only pisses them off, but dead man´s blood is poisonous to them and will slow them down when it enters their blood stream. Watch the teeth and no matter what you do, _do not drink their blood_ or it will turn you.”

Sam nodded and watched as the hunter appraised his double-cheese-extra-bacon-heart-attack-burger with the same admiration other people usually reserved for their lovers. Sometimes he couldn’t believe that this was the same man that had refused to drink alcohol and had gulped down insane amounts of that Master Cleanse stuff. Smith and Winchester were polar opposites in so many respects, it was hard to think of them as one and the same person and not of two individual ones.

Then Dean bit into his burger and all rational thoughts Sam might have had were blown away by the downright pornographic sounds the man made at the taste.

“God, that stuff is _awesome_!”

Soon, Sam was only picking at his own food, too busy watching the other man devour his burger to care that he was staring. The way Dean was stuffing his cheeks should have been disgusting, but somehow it only had him imagining those lips wrapped around something else entirely and – fuck. He had a boner. Again.

Before he had the chance to think of his dad in a mankini or an equally disturbing image, there was a faint fluttering sound and suddenly, he found himself face to face with some weird dude in a trench coat.

“Hello, Dean.”

Sam would later deny the embarrassingly high yelp that escaped his throat at the unexpected appearance, but the truth was that he very nearly fell out of his booth.

“Hello, Sam.”

Dean, on the other hand, just rolled his eyes in exasperation and shot the stranger a hard look.

“Cas. We´ve talked about this. Don’t give us a damn heart attack and _stop sitting on my freaking lap_! Personal space, you idiot!”

The guy, Cas, seemed totally unfazed. His focus was on Sam anyway, two startlingly blue eyes boring into him and making him squirm.

“Dean. This man is not your brother.”

“Thanks for telling me, Sherlock. What would I ever do without you and your endless wisdom.”

A head tilt and a slight turn, blue eyes moved on to fix on Dean. Sam huffed a sigh of relief.

“I am always glad to be of service, Dean. But I believe you don’t understand the seriousness of – “

“Oh, I´m well aware of the seriousness, believe me. We can discuss this _after_ I finished my freaking lunch! And don’t you dare tell me that you can´t wait that long, you son of a bitch! I waited for _two fucking months_ for you to show up, you can wait another twenty minutes!”

Then the two just stared at one another, neither of them saying a word or even blinking.

Sam was not sure if they were trying to kill or fuck each other.

……

Probably both.

Minutes ticked by.

_Definitely_ both.

“Uh… Dean? You wanna introduce me to your… friend?”

Dean blinked, apparently confused, but then his eyes widened and he started to wave his hands between them in addition to his introduction.

“Oh, yeah, well… Sam, this is Cas. Castiel, Angel of the Lord. I think I´ve told you about him… Cas, this is Sam _Wesson_ , my new hunting partner. We´ve met after an encounter with Zachariah.”

_This_ was an angel?

“Well, nice to meet you, Cas.” Sam extended a hand for the angel to shake, but pulled it back slowly when the guy made no move to grab it. Apparently Dean´s stories about his lack of social skill were not exaggerated.

“Ah, Zachariah. I believe I understand now.” Another head tilt. “The alteration is surprisingly subtle, I would never have thought that Zachariah is capable of such finesse. I assume you have already attempted to –“

“Cas! _After_ lunch! And in _private_!”

The angel pursed his lips but nodded his acquiescence.

“I shall wait for you in the car.” With that he disappeared again.

Sam raised an eyebrow.

“So… You and him?”

Dean stared back at him for a moment before understanding crossed his face – but instead of embarrassed sputtering, the man started laughing.

“What now? Me and Cas? Dude, are you serious? He´s a freaking angel! I´d probably get struck by lightning the moment I made a move on him, not to mention that I´d have to remove that giant stick from his ass first. I don´t mind a challenge, but that´s way too much effort, man.”

He gulped down the rest of his burger, got up and threw a few bills on the table.

“Finish your rabbit food, Wesson. You´ll need all of your strength for training later, believe me. I´ll be outside and have a discussion with our Warrior of God over there.”

 

* * *

 

 

“So you have no idea how to fix him?”

“I´m sorry Dean, but no. I´m afraid Zachariah´s work exceeds my competences by far. I can try to make some inquiries, but I´m not sure if that will help either.”

Dean dragged a tired hand across his face and sighed. Figured that fucking Zachariah had out-angeled Cas again.

“I have to admit that I´m surprised by your continued dedication to hunting even though your brother is currently… indisposed.”

“It´s a pain in the ass, but it´s not nearly bad as I´d have thought. His head is a mess and I feel like I´m sixteen again and trying to keep him from accidently shooting himself, but his subconsciousness is acting up I think. At least his fighting is improving much faster than it should… He doesn’t really remember anything, though.”

 “Did he ever express a desire for demon blood?”

_Shit_. Dean hated to admit it, but Sam´s little blood problem had been way down on his list of priorities in the last few weeks.

“Not as far as I can tell. Do you think Zachariah has cured him?”

Cas shook his head. “The taint is still there. I suspect his craving is simply hidden away behind the wall with his other memories.”

“Well, one less thing to worry about I guess. Thanks, Cas. Let me know if there´s any news.”

The angel disappeared with a slight nod and Dean turned around to face Sam who was slowly approaching the Impala.

“He already left?”

“Angel business. A choir meeting for all I know… C´mon, Sasquatch, get your ass into the car, we need to go find a supermarket.”

 

* * *

 

 

An hour later they were standing in a clearing in the forest, machete in hand and facing a long row of watermelons.

“How could I ever think you were _joking_! Of course, you would be the crazy guy you read about in algebra that buys two dozen watermelons at once! I think we freaked out the poor cashier.”

Dean just shrugged. “Melons is easier than buying pig carcasses and they offer enough resistance to give you at least some idea of what you can expect when you try to chop off a vamp´s head.”

“ _Pig_. _Carcasses_.”

“The heads, mainly. From the butcher. My Dad started to train me using some of those, but people get hella suspicious when you buy more than one of them.”

 “Your life is weird.”

He just grinned. “It´s yours too now, buddy. Now come on, I´ll show you what to do.”

It took them another thirty minutes until Dean was happy with both Sam´s stance and his movements. It was not easy to swing a machete the right way and decapacitation required both strength and the right technique, but as usual Sam was a quick student and they moved on to watermelon practice soon.

Dean gave him a demonstration on the first one and then motioned for Wesson to copy him, correcting the guy whenever necessary. It didn’t really help, though. Sam kept on tilting his right hand just a fraction too much and Dean knew from experience that this could quickly result in a sprained wrist or worse.

“Dude, this is not going to work. Hang on, we´ll try something different.”

Without another thought, Dean stepped behind the taller man and put one of his hands on Sam´s left hip while the other grabbed his right wrist.

“Look, you gotta use your whole body weight, but watch your balance! We do not want you to topple over in the middle of a fight. And watch your arms, Sam, you need to control the movement or you´ll end up hurting yourself. See, you´re tilting your wrist to much again… Hold on – yeah, perfect. Try again!”

“Dean… could you step back a bit? You´re a bit too close for comfort, man.”

Sam´s voice sounded a bit weird and Dean noticed that his body was tense and awkward, obviously uncomfortable with their closeness. No surprise actually, right now they were plastered together from head to toe, their bodies close enough that he could feel the muscles in Sam´s back moving even through all the fabric that separated them. Dean jumped back immediately, because yeah – not his brother, not his brother, _not his freaking brother_.

Being close to Sammy and touching him had long since ceased to be weird in any way – perks of growing up in close quarters and seeing the other in all sorts of awkward situations. After the third time some bad guys tied your bodies together in your underwear and left you like that for hours, you came to terms with the fact that a certain level of touching was unavoidable.

But Wesson wasn’t Sammy and the poor guy must feel like Dean was perving on him on purpose.

“Shit, sorry man. I´ll try to be subtler the next time I feel like groping you in public.”

Sam huffed a strangled laugh and the next two melons were a disaster. But he seemed to get a grip on himself afterwards and by the end of their little massacre, Dean was confident in his abilities to handle a few vamps.

“Alright, let´s blow this joint and find a motel. We´ve got a lot of research to do tomorrow.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys, this took me more time than I had expected, but in order to make up for that, this chapter is also way longer than I had planned :D  
> Thank you all for reading this!  
> Love you and have a wonderful weekend!

Wesson´s eyes were fixed on the long, sharp fangs that sprouted from the corpse´s gums when Dean pressed his fingers into the cold flesh.

“I honestly can´t decide if this is the coolest or the most terrifying thing I´ve ever seen… and after the last few weeks with you, this is a rather long list of terrifying and cool. I mean… _fangs_! This is – Seriously, this dude looks like one of those freaking anglerfish!”

Dean snorted and pulled his gloved hand back. “Anglerfish? Like the one from Finding Nemo? Really, Sam? This is what you are taking away from your first face to face meeting with a vampire?”

With a wide grin, he picked up the severed head and dangled it in front of the other man. “Get it? Face to face?”

“Dean!”

His not-brother reared back with a look of utter disgust - it was just too easy to rile the guy up! Sammy had never been squeamish when it came to body part and fluids, but Wesson was a totally different story. The dude had puked his guts out after their run-in with a witch coven in Illinois last month – though even Dean had to admit that it had been a particularly nasty case, bugs slowly devouring a person´s intestines from the inside out really didn’t make for a pretty picture…

“Could you at least _try_ to act professional for once? Seriously, how do you never get busted? And stop waving body parts in my face! I can handle them if I have to, but I´d rather not touch this shit when it is not absolutely necessary.”

Sam was just no fun! Apparently, some things never changed, no matter which version of his whinny little brother he had to deal with.

“I´m not playing around, _Agent_. See this?” He gestured to where the vamp´s body should have been under normal circumstances. “The torn tissue all around his neck? This is not what it would look like if the killer had used any sort of blade... This guy´s head has been _ripped_ off with brute force - vampire strength, Sam!” He dropped the head back to the examination table and pulled the sheet over it. “Those vamps are obviously already fighting with each other, which _might_ come in handy, but also makes them more volatile and fucking unpredictable. We better find them before they escalate.”

He motioned for Sam to follow him back outside, brusquely passing the bloodless bodies of the five victims. All of them had several deep cuts on both their wrists and throats, teeth marks littering the surrounding skin, a testimony to the greedy hunger with which their killers had sucked them dry. The victimology was all over the place; male and female, old and young, Asian and African-American and Caucasian people – all of them had died in the matter of about fifteen days. The last victim had only been found yesterday, meaning that they did not have a lot of time until the vamps needed to feed again.

Based on the number of victims, the hunter was pretty sure that the nest was no bigger than four or five vampires. They would be able to handle that number, even if Sam was not yet up to his usual standards…

“Agents!”

Dean felt a smile spread on his face as he turned around to face the newcomer.

Detective Laura Kingston, aka the local LEO leading this case. She was unusually competent and perceptive for a cop and also freaking _hot_ \- he had always been attracted to people who could handle themselves in a fight and this woman was no exception. Judging by the way she was flirting with him even though she hadn’t been very happy about the Bureau´s involvement in _her_ case, the feeling was mutual.

It was a dangerous game to play, however, and Dean was only all too aware of that. After all, one of his top rules when it came to hook-ups was to never get involved with law enforcement – it never ended well and he really didn’t fancy being arrested in his underwear _again_.

_Flirting_ wouldn´t hurt, though. It was fun and entertaining _and_ it had the bonus of making Wesson uncomfortable. He had no clue what exactly had gotten Sam´s panties in a twist this time, but the guy got all stiff and cranky whenever Detective Kingston showed up and - angel-induced amnesia or not - it was Dean´s duty as the older brother to mess with the guy, so sue him if he was enjoying this a little bit too much.

“Detective! Nice to meet at least one friendly face in here! Just when I started to feel lonely.”

“Ah, finally a man who knows how to woe a girl! I´m flattered that you´d prefer my company to that of a bunch of half-frozen corpses. Found anything interesting?” Her smile was teasing and Dean didn’t miss the way her eyes lingered on his torso –who could blame her? He had taken advantage of Smith´s extensive collection of costume made suits (Though he had only packed the less ‘fashionable’ ones. He was pretty sure the FBI would not approve of bright red suspenders or the like.) and as a result, he looked pretty damn awesome.

“Nothing we didn’t already know, unfortunately. The blood-drained victims certainly fit the MO of our killer, but the other body… I´m not sure what to make of that one. Animal attack, maybe?”

Kingston sighed and shook her head. “The wounds certainly don’t fit any animal I have ever heard of, but there doesn’t seem to be another believable explanation for this. We might need to contact an expert on animal behavior and see what they say… Only if the Bureau doesn’t claim this body as well, that is.”

“Nah, don’t worry about that one, he´s all yours. We´ll stick to our serial killer for now.”

They chatted for a few minutes longer, bodies drifting closer together, her hand touching his arm every now and then. She didn’t even try to hide her intentions and Dean was starting to list the pro´s and con´s in his head – a one night stand wouldn’t hurt, surely. He´d have to wait until after they´d cleaned up the nest, of course, but after that…

“Well, Agent… How about we discuss this issue over lunch? The diner down the street has some fantastic lunch deals and I sure could go for some food, I´m _starving_!”

Dean grinned. Yahtzee!

But before he had a chance to agree to her offer, one of Sam´s huge hands wrapped around his waist and pulled him in.

“I´m afraid we won´t be able to do lunch today, Detective. My _partner_ and I still have a few leads to follow and we´d rather wrap this up as soon as possible. For all we know, the killer is still in the area and already stalking his next victim.”

Wesson was looming right beside him, freaking _dwarfing_ him, his body a stiff and unmovable line of heat pressing into Dean´s side. The guy´s face was equally as stoic, bitchface number 57 firmly in place – it was the one that meant that his little brother was beyond pissed by his antics and that there was no power in heaven or hell that would convince Sam to drop his current course of action. Awesome.

Of all the unfortunate habits Amnesia-Sam could have picked up from Normal-Sam, why did it have to be the most obnoxious ones! Why not something useful like Sammy´s love for snacks? Or his research mojo? No, of freaking course it had to be his tendency to cockblock Dean whenever he could.

And by using their couple-routine no less! Dean had always despised that one, though he had to admit that it was usually pretty successful. Screw all those presumably open-minded people and their willingness to believe that a gay couple was about a thousand times trustworthier then two single guys! Playing all lovey-dovey with his freaking _brother_ was certainly not his idea of fun.

The Detective, of course, was more than thrown off by this turn of events. She blushed bright red and stammered her way through an apology, obviously rather flustered that she had hit on a guy when his boyfriend was right there beside him.

 As soon as she was out of earshot, Dean spun around and pushed Sam up against the wall.

“What. The. _Fuck_. Sam! What do you think you are doing? Protecting my virtue?!”

Wesson had turned almost as red as the detective a few moments earlier, but his gaze didn’t waver.

“You were the one that told me that we should stay as far away from law enforcement as possible! So what, that doesn’t apply to _you_? You´d really risk our cover for a quick lay?”

Dean was still fuming – it didn’t help that Sam was totally right to tell him off. He _hated_ it when that happened.

“I wasn’t going to _act_ on it, you idiot! Now, how do you think will she react the next time we need her help? Way to blow our chances, dude. _Seriously_!”

Wesson had the decency to look a bit sheepish now, though there was still anger burning in his eyes. And wait -  was that _jealousy_?

“I´m sorry, Dean. I didn’t mean to fuck this up, but screwing the detective is– “

“Shut it, Sam. I don’t wanna hear this shit right now. C´mon, we still need to find that damn nest and we better do it fast. I´m not gonna stay in this shitty excuse for a town any longer than strictly necessary.”

 

* * *

 

 

As it turned out, there were a shitload of places surrounding the town that would be suitable to house a vamp nest. Dean had been quick to draw up a map and figure out a route, so they had spent the last five hours scouting one place after the other – this far, without any success. It didn’t help that the atmosphere between them was still a bit awkward and tense.

Apparently, Winchester hadn’t forgiven him his stunt back at the morgue, but Sam had already apologized once and he wasn’t about to do it a second time! Not when he was still convinced that it had been the right thing to do, even if some of his motives had been rather more selfish than he had made Dean believe. It wasn’t _only_ his jealousy speaking, after all. Hooking up with a damn cop was only going to complicate things further and that really was the last thing they needed right now.

Sam was exhausted and hungry, the slight rain that had been pouring down on them in the last hour doing nothing but heighten his discomfort. He was getting cold and thanks to the scent-blocking ashes Dean had insisted they dust their clothes with, he was also slimy and sticky all over. That stuff really didn’t mix well with rain. Seriously, how he could ever have thought that hunting was in any way a glorious and rewarding thing to do was beyond him. Being the hero of the story sucked ass.

Winchester didn’t seem all that fazed by their lack of success, though he did curse up a storm whenever another building proved to be empty. Daylight was fading fast by now and Sam was pretty sure that they´d give up their search soon – no need to run headfirst into a nest of well-rested vamps when they weren’t even sure about the number of blood suckers in there.

His thoughts were interrupted by Dean nudging his shoulder and Sam silently followed the hunter´s lead and ducked behind a bush, a short burst of satisfaction shooting through him when he immediately knew how to interpret the signals the other man was giving him – it was rather nice not to be a total rookie at this anymore.

Dean was in full-on hunter-mode by now, machete in hand, his body tense and ready to strike, eyes focused and scanning the surrounding area carefully for any sign of movement. Sure enough, once Sam focused, it was easy to pick up the vague shape of two bodies moving in the darkness of the barn in front of them.

“Awesome.” Winchester whispered, grinning and obviously pleased with their discovery. “Let´s give this another hour or so until we have a better grasp on their numbers. After that it will be too dark for us to see, anyway. We´ll come back tomorrow morning and gank those motherfuckers.”

Another hour of sitting in knee-deep mud, then. Yep, hunting was heaps of fun.

With a sigh, Sam made himself more comfortable. An hour wasn’t all that bad and at least Dean did not plan to make a move tonight. He was certainly thankful for that one, his arms still freaking hurt from the melon exercise the day before.

Unfortunately, his dreams of a nice, quiet evening only lasted approximately ten more minutes.

Then a scream tore through the fading light of the day, sobs and pleading intermingling with the loud laughter of the vamps taunting their victim.

Dean´s curses nearly had him blushing, but he totally agreed with the sentiment – so much for a hot shower and food.

Someone required their help and by the sound of it, they would need to act fast.

 

* * *

 

 

A few moments later, they crouched in front of one of the half-broken windows and peered inside to where three vamps were surrounding the cowering figure of a girl, one of them lazily combing his fingers through her hair in a mockery of a caress.

A rough hand wrapped around Sam´s biceps and pulled him down so that his head was on the same level as Winchester´s.

“We gotta go in, Sam. There´s a pretty good change they´ll kill her tonight and I´d rather dress up in drag and dance the Macarena than allow that to happen. _You_ will stay right beside me the whole time, got it? No heroic one-man-stunts, no running off on your own. Vamps are nothing to joke about and we have way less intel than I would have liked. So your ass will go wherever I go and you will freaking _listen_ when I tell you to do something, okay?”

Sam only nodded and hurried after the hunter towards the backdoor, doing his best to keep the noise down. He wasn’t all that confident in his abilities to fight those bastards, but he didn’t have much of a choice. Short of leaving that girl to die or of having Dean face the threat alone, there was nothing he could do but suck it up and hope that he wouldn’t throw up as soon as the huge knife in his hands met actual flesh. Vampire or not, they still looked fucking _human_.

Dean seemed to sense his inner turmoil - the guy was scarily good at reading him, it was a bit creepy to be honest – and lifted a hand to squeeze his shoulder for a moment. Somehow, this simple gesture was enough to calm him down, so he forced a tiny smile and took a deep breath before storming inside right alongside Dean

After that, everything dissolved into chaos.

Sam barely had time to lift his weapon before a body was crashing into him, knocking him off his feet and making him tumble to the floor in an uncoordinated heap of flying limbs. Claw-like fingers were tearing through his shirt and into his chest and his eyes caught a quick flash of sharp teeth just seconds before sharp pain exploded in his neck. Distantly, he could hear someone scream his name, but the franctic beating of his heart was loud enough to drown out everything else. The body pressing down on him didn’t budge, was too strong for him to fight and for a few precious seconds he panicked, the knowledge of his imminent death paralyzing him, making it impossible to _think_.

Then, Dean was there. Not his physical self, but a low voice in his head that was whispering instructions, his tone calm and confident and enabling him to move. It was more instinct than anything else that had Sam pull the dagger from the sheet on his belt and shove it into the unprotected back of the blood sucker on top of him. He was sure that it was not pain that caused the vamp to dislodge his fangs from his neck, but rather the dead man´s blood cursing through its veins and immobilizing it. Suddenly, he was able to break free and push his opponent back, to struggle to his knees, eyes already searching for his discarded machete and relief flooding him when it was only a few feet away. The vampire was snarling at him, its fangs and mouth glistening with blood, an open challenge in its eyes.

In that moment, it was easy to lift his weapon and bring it down with all the strength he could muster, the only thought in his head the distant observation that Dean had been bullshitting him: beheading people was not at all comparable to cutting watermelons in half. _Totally_ different thing.

Precious seconds ticked by while he stared at the severed head, at the blood slowly oozing out of the wound, so much darker and gooier than it should be.

A pained grunt finally snapped him out of his stupor and he spun around, his eyes quickly scanning the scene in front of him.

Three vampires were lying either dead or incapacitated on the floor on the far side of the room, while a fourth one had Dean pressed against one of the wooden walls of the barn, both caught in a struggle for dominance that the hunter had no chance of winning. Without any conscious thought, Sam´s fingers pulled another dagger from his belt and threw it at the vamp, the blade imbedding itself in the flesh right below the man´s shoulder blade. It was all the advantage Dean needed to gain the upper hand, but Sam didn’t wait to watch. Instead he immediately turned to blood sucker number five, a female who was dragging their human would-be-victim backwards towards the door, her fangs dangerously close to the girl´s throat.

Sam tightened his grip on the machete and carefully inched closer.

“Stay where you are, hunter or this girl will die!”

He couldn’t help but sneer at that.

“And after that? She´s the only leverage you have, nothing to keep us from killing you once she´s dead.”

He felt Dean stepping up to him, his breathing still harsh and fast. Sam could see the eyes of the human girl flickering between the two of them, hope and fear intermingling in her face.

“You will kill me one way or the other, but I can still make you hurt. I´ve seen hunters like you before, if you can´t save her, it will haunt you forever.”

Beside him, Dean laughed. It was a dark, cruel sound that send shivers down Sam´s spine.

“Let me rephrase that, bitch. Let the girl go and I´ll ice you quick and easy, cut your head off so fast you won´t even feel a thing. But if you kill her, all bets are off. I can make you _hurt_ , I can take you apart with my knife until you´re begging me to make it stop. Either option is fine by me, sweetheart.”

The vamp snarled at them, but this time there was real fear in her eyes. Fear that had her take a few steps back when Dean approached and unfortunately for her, she hadn’t seen the body of one of her companions and so she stumbled over it, losing her balance and tumbling to the ground.

Both hunters moved at the same time. Some weird instinct had Sam running to pull the victim out of the danger zone while Dean went after the vampire. It was over before any of them had any real time to process what was happening and suddenly Sam found himself kneeling on the dirty floor of the abandoned barn, surrounded by the corpses of six headless vampires, a crying girl clutching at his blood-soaked shirt.

It was a bit of a blur afterwards.

Dean, of course, had noticed that he had been hurt and made a big fuss over both him and the girl, checking them over, making sure that no vampire had bleed on them and finally bandaging their wound perfunctorily. The vamp victim, Susan, was unhurt except for some small abrasions on her arms and legs where the ropes had bitten into her skin. Sam was not as lucky. In addition to his bite marks there was also a long, rather deep claw wound on his chest. He hadn’t even really felt it at the time, but Dean looked at it critically and promised to stich him up later. Lucky him.

Winchester had Sam scout the area for any signs of more blood suckers while he himself dragged their corpses outside to salt and burn them, using way more gasoline then he usually would to hurry up the process. He also gave the girl a shortened down version of ‘the Talk’ he had given Sam a few weeks back, before writing down their cellphone numbers for her and driving her home with the instructions to call if she´d ever need their special brand of help.

Finally, they were back in the Impala and Sam had time to get a closer look at the cut on his chest. It was still bleeding sluggishly and it looked deep enough to make him a bit dizzy.

“Maybe you should drive me to the next hospital. You were right, this wound will only bother me for weeks if it doesn’t get stitched up.”

Dean just snorted.

“Sam. There´s no freaking way I can take you to a hospital. I told you this before we started hunting together, we don´t have health insurance. Plus, look at you, man! You´re covered in the blood of at least two other people and there´s bite marks on your neck. Bite marks! How are you going to explain those, huh? No, Sasquatch, we´re going back to the motel now, where you will take a nice, long shower and after that, I will take care of that cut of yours. Trust me, I´m good at that shit.”

Sam eyed his friend critically.

“You never told me you were a doctor.”

“That´s because I´m not. Not a certified one, anyway. Doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly what I´m doing.”

He was still far from convinced, but what could he do? Dean was right, a hospital was not an option…

“Alright. But please tell me you have some sort of anesthetics.”

Winchester just grinned and pulled a bottle of whiskey from somewhere below his seat.

“Awesome.”

 

* * *

 

 

Twenty minutes later, Sam stepped out of the bathroom. He was only clad in some boxers and sweatpants, forgoing a shirt until Dean had taken care of his wounds. Winchester had cleaned up a bit as well, but for once Sam was too nervous to admire the way the thin shirt stretched over his broad chest. Stitches sounded rather painful and he wasn’t really sure if he liked needles that much. Then again, he had survived getting that weird tattoo, so it couldn’t be _that_ bad.

“C´mon, Buffy!” Dean slapped his ass and laughed when Sam turned bright red. “Let´s get you stitched up and bandaged. Sit your ass on the bed and drink some more of your whiskey. You´ll need it, believe me.”

Surprisingly gentle hands tilted his head to one side, exposing his neck and the bite there.

 “There´s not much I can do about those teeth marks on your neck, but it´s just puncture wounds, they´ll heal in no time.

Dean spend the next few minutes cleaning and disinfecting both of his wounds, his hands careful but sure – the guy obviously knew what he was doing and he seemed to sense Sam´s trepidation. There was nothing left of his usual bravado and cockiness, only calm reassurance and concern.

The taller man was fidgeting while he watched the hunter sanitize a needle and some dental floss, nearly jumping off the bed when a warm hand squeezed his shoulder.

“I´m not gonna lie, Sammy – this is going to hurt like a bitch, but I´ll try to be as quick and gentle as possible, alright? I promise you can sleep afterwards and I won´t hassle you with weapons training for at least five days.”

Sam swallowed and nodded, tensing at the first sting of the needle biting into his skin. Dean was right, it freaking hurt, but it was a dull sort of pain. Nothing compared to the feeling of the vamp´s teeth tearing into his neck. What got to him, though, was the nauseating glide of dental floss through his skin – the feeling was weird and uncomfortable, he´d need a distraction if he wanted to make it through this without throwing up.

“You have never called me that before.”

Dean didn’t look up from his task, but his nose wrinkled in confusion.

“Called you what?”

“Sammy. Well, not since we started hunting together, anyway. Just that one time when I was at your apartment for the first time… I told you I didn’t like it back then, but – well, it´s different now. You can call me Sammy if you want to, you know? It sounds right, somehow, coming from you.”

Dean had stiffened during his little speech, his whole body rigid and unmoving. He still hadn’t looked up from Sam´s chest, eyes fixed on the broken skin there, but then a choked off laugh escaped him and he drew in a sharp breath.

“Alright, Sam. Thanks for the permission – I´m not sure I can do that, but… I´ll try, okay?”

For a moment the air was thick between, the tension nearly palpable and suddenly the sting of the needle was not nearly as important as the feeling of Dean´s hot breath caressing his skin, his hand digging into the meat of his shoulder, his body close enough to make Sam feel his warmth.

_Shit_.

Distraction, he needed a distraction.

“Talk to me, Winchester! Please, I need to get my focus off that needle or I´m going to puke all over you!”

Dean´s laughter was light and infectious.

“Someone doesn’t like needles, huh? Alright, but you better get used to this, because it´s high time you learn how to do that shit as well. I don´t wanna bleed out one day just because you´re too much of a prissy to stitch me up!”

Then the hunter launched into an elaborate story about how is younger brother had once been forced to go on a date with some fifty-year-old cougar for a case and had consequently spent the whole evening trying to keep the very insistent woman out of his pants.

Sam knew better than to ask for more details – whatever had happened to the brother, it was clearly still hurting Dean a lot.

Finally, the hunter was done with the stiches, bandaging the wound and ordering Sam to get some sleep.

“I´ll go grab a shower and then I don’t want to hear anything else for the next six hours! I´m beat, man – Start snoring and I´ll kick your ass!”

Sam buried himself under the covers, closing his eyes and resting his hand on top of the bandages. His skin was still tingling all over – he was just not sure if that was due to the wound or the alcohol, or rather the ghost of Dean´s fingers on his skin.

He was so, so screwed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares, Cas, and Sammy decides to make a move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I´m so sorry, guys! It took me ages to update this because my first draft was shit and I couldn´t move past it....  
> BUT I´m way happier with this one and I hope the length makes up for the long wait! I´m trying to be quicker with the next one! Promise :)
> 
> Thanks to all of you who commented and left kudos! It´s awesome to see that I´m not the only one having fun with this! :D I´ll try to answer more often in the future, but I might get awkward about it, so excuse my rambling.
> 
> Special thanks to bkkn who reminded me that I still hadn´t posted the update!
> 
> Hope you enjoy this one!
> 
> As usual: unbeta´d and not my first language, sorry for any mistakes!

Sam woke up screaming.

He felt disoriented, his mind still stuck in the horror of his nightmare, his nose burning with the stench of sulfur, of blood, of _death_. Rough hands were wrapping around his biceps like steel chains, trying to pull him down but he wouldn´t let them, was fighting their unrelenting grasp with all the strength he could muster, his whole body squirming and bucking up in the attempt to throw his attacker off.

_Dean_ , he needed to get to Dean, needed to warn him that they were coming for him, nightmares with sharp teeth and claws and _blood_ – dear Lord, _so much_ blood!

“Sam!”

Sharp pain exploded in his head and then the lights flickered up all around him, their brightness making him flinch and try to hide his eyes.

“Sam, SAM, you´re back!... You´re _back_ , Sam, you´re with me. C´mon, wake up, man!”

He blinked up to where concerned green eyes were boring into his and suddenly he became aware of their shitty motel room, dust and cheap soap replacing the smell of death and sulfur and allowing him to breathe again.

He was back and Dean was _fine_ , no blood, no screams, no guts spilling out of his stomach.

Sam could hear Dean huff in surprise when he unexpectedly moved forward, but he simply couldn´t help himself, had to hug that stupid son of a bitch even though he was well aware that the gesture was a far cry from their usual friendly but distant slaps and pats. He didn’t fucking _care_ , just needed the reassurance.

_Just a dream. Just some stupid, stupid dream_.

To his surprise he wasn´t pushed away or punched for his disregard of their normal protocol. Instead Dean pulled him closer, one hand curling into his shirt while the other started rubbing soothing circles on his back.

“Jesus, Sammy. Nightmares again? What was it this time?”

Sam frowned at the implication. How on earth did Dean know about his nightmares? He´d thought he´d been quite sneaky about it, definitely secretive enough to not alert his hunter friend… Well, apparently, he´d been wrong.

He cleared his throat.

“Hellhounds.” Sam cringed at the sound of his own voice. God, he sounded awful.

“ _Killing_ you, ripping you apart in front of my eyes and I couldn´t do anything about it. Was just standing there, unable to move, unable to fight...”

Dean had stiffened at his words, his body suddenly rigid and tense, nails digging into Sam´s shoulder almost painfully.

“Shit, Sammy.” His voice sounded a lot hoarser than before. “ _Fuck_!... It was just a dream, Sam. Just some bullshit your mind made up, doesn’t mean anything. I´m safe, I _swear_. They won´t hurt me.”

Sam pulled back a bit to level a shocked look at Dean.

“So, they´re real, then?!”

“… Yeah. Nasty sons of bitches, too. Usually only dangerous to people that are at the end of their demon deals. We´ll be _fine_. I promise.”

The hand on his back had moved up a bit, was now high enough to ghost over the naked skin of his neck and suddenly Sam became painfully aware of the intimacy of their position.

Shit.

He pulled back abruptly enough to make Dean shoot him a curious look, but the hunter didn’t comment, only raised an eyebrow and got up from the bed to rummage through their tiny kitchen. Winchester came back with a candy bar and a bottle of water and pressed both of them into his still shaking hands. God, that dream had been _way_ too realistic. This life was really starting to fuck with his head.

“Eat up, bitch. You´ll feel better afterwards... And then try to sleep some more, there´s a whole lot of driving ahead of us and I need you well rested.”

Sam did as he was told and was unsurprised to notice that it really _did_ help. Dean was ridiculously good at that, was able to read him easily and sometimes even knew what he needed before Sam´d even noticed that something was wrong with him. It was a bit creepy, to be honest, but he figured that it was a hunter´s job to notice things and pick up on other people´s emotions.

So Sam ate his chocolate and listened to Dean hum some old AC/DC song on his own bed a few feet away – the sound was weirdly soothing, was helping him to calm down further. Fucking nightmares.

A look on his phone revealed that it was only three a.m. – which meant at least three more hours of sleep until their alarm would go off to get them out of bed for their morning work-out.

Still, there was something nagging at him, something he felt he had to get out in the open before sleep was an option.

“Dean?”

“Mmmmh?”

“Don´t you ever dare make one of those demon deals! Not. Ever. Okay?”

The hunter didn’t move to look at him. Just lay on his back with his head tilted back, eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling. When he finally answered, his voice was strangled and even rougher than usual.

“I promise, Sammy.”

 

* * *

 

“Your brother is remembering.”

Dean huffed.

“I´ve noticed _that_. What I wanna know is _why_? And _how_? I thought this shit is permanent!”

“It is. Usually.” Cas eyed him thoughtfully. “You said that something similar has happened before?”

“Yep, Sammy here has been dreaming about me ever since your friend Zac decided it would be fun to play 50 First Dates with us. Freaked me the hell out at the time.”

“This means that Sam´s flashbacks are intentional. Zachariah wanted him to remember parts of your life to push him back into hunting though he clearly underestimated Sam´s strength. If his subconsciousness is actively trying to fight the wall inside his head, the weaker parts might start to collapse under the pressure. It is a very slow process, but I have no doubt that Sam will succeed eventually.”

Dean ruthlessly swallowed down the relief flooding his chest at those words.

“What timeframe are we talking about here?”

“Years, decades… It will certainly take more time than your patience will allow.”

Of freaking course it would.

“Awesome. So this is basically useless and all it does is give Sam nightmares?”

“Essentially, yes. Though it might also strengthen the brotherly bond between the two of you. You´re connection to Sam is remarkably strong, I´m positive that your brother might be able to recall at least some of it. Certainly no specifics but he might yet surprise you.”

Yeah. _Right_. He sighed.

“Thanks, Cas. You mind dropping in on Bobby? He might´ve found something but he needs your help with the translation. It´s some ancient Hebrew dialect and since Sam is out of commission...”

“Of course, Dean. I´ll see what I can do.”

Another flutter of wings and the angel was gone.

Dean dragged a tired hand over his face and grabbed his take-out bags to walk back to where Baby was waiting for him.

Jesus, this was way harder than he had expected.

And he missed Sammy. Missed his knowledge and quiet strength and stupid socks sneaking their way into his duffel. He missed their bickering, missed Sam forcing him to eat salad and even his constant bitching. Missed the chance to talk to someone who _got_ him, who had been there for all of it.

Because yeah, Wesson was awesome. The guy was smart and freaking eager to learn and sometimes he was so much like Sammy, it fucking hurt. But it just wasn’t the same.

Fuck, they still had heaven and hell on their asses, still their normal hunting routine to consider and though Wesson did his best to pull his weight, he was _not_ Sam. Not even close.

And now the nightmares. They were increasingly getting worse, forcing Sam to go through some of their worst memories over and over again and Dean didn’t know if he could keep the truth to himself for much longer.

Last night it had been Jess.

The one before, their Dad.

Pastor Jim.

The hellhounds.

Sam´s own death.

It was getting worse from week to week and Dean knew that Wesson was starting to suspect that something fishy was going on. The kid was a freaking genius after all, it wouldn’t take him long to notice that his dreams were a tad too realistic to be only something his mind had come up with.

 

* * *

 

    
“Brotherly bond, my ass” Dean rolled his eyes and shot a dark look in the direction of his baby brother who was currently intently licking chocolate cake off his sticky fingers. He had to admit that Sam was making quite the show out of it, he was all huge eyes and sneaky looks in Dean´s direction, his tongue poking out and lips wrapping around his fingertips as he slowly sucked them clean. The whole display was just on the right side of obscene, carefully crafted to ride the fine line between seduction and innocence and giving Sam the opportunity to gauge his reaction and adjust his next move accordingly.

The innocence act might have worked on lesser people but Dean was an expert in both seduction _and_ in the inner workings of his brother´s mind and right now Amnesia-Sam was about as subtle as a train wreck.

Sammy, his _brother_ , was flirting with him and he had no fucking clue how to handle that.

It had started out innocently enough: warm smiles and gentle touches, their fingers brushing or Sam pressing their thighs together when they tried to fit in front of the same computer screen. Most of it had just been business as usual, a slow return to their normal brotherly dynamics and Dean had been thrilled that another part of his brother was slowly coming back, that maybe Cas had been right and Sam´s subconsciousness recognized their family ties. God, he had missed this.

And then he had done what no hunter should ever do, had ignored his instincts, had silenced the warning bells ringing at the back of his head and had therefore been woefully unprepared when the inevitable crash came.

It had been about two weeks ago when Dean had finally decided that Sam´s wounds had healed up enough for him to resume his training routine.

They went out for a five-mile run and their usual work-out routine of sit-ups and push-ups and shit and then Dean had been stupid enough to propose another sparring match.

Wesson had improved a lot, the dude was pretty close to Sam´s old level by now which meant that Dean actually had to work for it if he wanted to win. They had circled each other, eyes carefully analyzing each movement, muscles tense as they waited for the other to lose his patience first. It had been Sam this time, a quick blow intended to throw Dean off balance, but he had seen it coming right away, had ducked and twisted and then everything had dissolved into a blurry of well-placed blows and defensive moves, of kicks and punches and a whole lot of colorful curses.

Dean had to admit that it had been a close call, Wesson had nearly managed to throw him off again, even from his position on the ground and had forced Dean to use his whole bulk and weight to pin the kid down. They had been pretty tangled up in the end, Sam flat on his back with Dean right on top of him, pressing him down until he stopped wiggling and finally admitted his defeat. Dean had been proud – he had taught the kid damn well (again) and the result was rather satisfying. Sam was certainly able to hold his own.

His elation had only lasted for a few short seconds, though, because Sam looked… weird. His brother hadn´t even tried to move or throw him off again like Normal-Sam would have. Instead he was just lying there, his body relaxed but his breathing labored, pupils blown wide as he stared up at Dean with an expression that was almost…

_Holy shit_!

Dean had been off and away in a heartbeat, suddenly all too aware that their current position was a bit more sexual than he had intended it to be.

Scratch that, a _whole lot_ more sexual.

And that weird expression? … That had been _arousal_ in his brother´s eyes. _Arousal_. Because Dean had been pining him down.

And Sam? For a moment, there had been something close to embarrassment in his eyes and Dean had expected him to mumble an apology and be all awkward and weird for the next two days. But then Sam had steeled himself, had squared his shoulders and when he´d looked up again, all traces of discomfort had been gone from his gaze.

Instead he had eyed Dean in a way that was entirely too judgmental and knowing in Dean´s book. It had been Sammy´s you´re-being-an-emotionally-constipated-idiot face. The one that said that Sam was waiting for him to finally catch up with his feelings and act on them.

Then, the bitch had winked at him. Freaking winked. All coy and flirty and Jesus! That whole brother/not-brother thing was really starting to bite him in the ass.

From that day on, the signs had been everywhere, though it still had taken Dean a few more days until he finally accepted the fact that his little brother was apparently trying to seduce him.

Suddenly, Sam was going out of his way to buy him coffee, always coming back with little extra treats like donuts, cupcakes, mini-pies, whatever he could get his hands on.

He was constantly touching Dean – never too intrusive, never anything too bold, just a gentle reminder that he was there. That he was available. _Interested_.

_God_.

At this point it was only a matter of time until Sam bought him flowers. He´d probably puke.

To make everything worse, Sam had apparently decided that shirts where a waste of fabric and started walking around half-naked whenever he thought he could get away with it. Dean was perfectly aware that his brother was fucking ripped, but _come on_ , no need to fucking _flaunt_ it! 

It didn’t help that Dean himself still had problems with maintaining appropriate boundaries between them. With Sammy, it had been easy, they simply _didn’t do boundaries_. What he hadn´t taken into account though, was how easy it was to misconstrue that fact, that for anyone not used to their dynamic this could easily be read as something way beyond platonic familiarity.

Like three days ago when Dean hadn’t been able to find his friggin’ phone and had barged into the bathroom looking for it just when Sam had been about to step into the shower. Normal-Sam would have thrown a towel at his head and bitched at him to get the hell out of the room. Amnesia-Sam had turned redder than a freaking lobster before apparently remembering that _he_ was the _seducer_ in this scenario here and that Dean had obviously walked in on him with the sole purpose of ogling his naked ass. Dean had seen Sam in action plenty of times. Jesus, it was him who had _taught_ the kid how to flirt, for fuck´s sake! But having the full force of those eyes directed _at him with purpose_ was a whole different story, especially since Sam hadn’t even tried to hide his nakedness. _Anyone_ would have been embarrassed by that situation.

_Embarrassed,_ mind you. _Not_ _flustered_. Dean fucking Winchester did not _do_ ‘flustered’!

And then, there were the tapes.

Classic rock. New mixtapes with his favorite songs. Old ones that he´d planned on buying the day their finances allowed for a little indulgence.

They simply appeared in the Impala, a new one every few days and he would´ve suspected some supernatural mumbo-jumbo if it hadn’t been for Sam barley being able to suppress his victorious grin at Dean´s obvious delight.

To sum things up: Dean was being courted.

He should probably give Sam extra points for being freaking awesome at it, too , but he couldn’t help but be pissed about being the girl in this whole clusterfuck scenario. And that did not even touch the fact that Sam was a _guy_ , and, you know, Dean´s freaking _brother_!

So yeah, the whole situation made him all sorts of twitchy and cranky and the worst thing was that he couldn’t even call Bobby and bitch about it. The man would only laugh his nuts off.

The one upside was that Lover Boy over there was way too preoccupied with his Getting-into-my-brother´s-pants-project to pay too much attention to his ever-increasing nightmares. Dean counted that as a win.

He sighed and killed the engine, shooting a stern look at Sam to get the idiot to stop making love to the cake and get his head back into hunting. They were on a case, for fuck´s sake!

Jesus, he _hated_ being the responsible one.

Sam only smiled at him, expression somewhere between triumphant and apologetic and cleaned his sticky fingers with a napkin before getting out of the car.

They entered the comic shop in full Professional Mode and with all the confidence of the real FBI. Which was why it was all the more annoying when the guy behind the counter started laughing at them and pulled them over to the bargain bin instead of answering their questions.

Dean scowled at the ridiculous book in his hand and exchanged a long look with Sam.

Whoever this Carver Edlund dude was, he _seriously_ needed to meet the guy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for commenting and leaving kudos! Y´all made my day :D
> 
> I´m not going to rewrite the whole Meet & Greet with Chuck, Lilith & Co. - you guys know what happened anyway - so this chapter is shamelessly focusing on the brotherly aspects! :D Poor Dean´s gonna suffer!
> 
> I figured the general storyline of that episode still stands, even with Sam only half-aware of what´s going on… Feel free to tell me if there´s major plot wholes! I left it a bit vague on purpose because I´m not a big fan of retelling the whole plotline just for the hell of it.  
> Oh yeah, and there´s a whole lot of dialogue and not much actual action going on (again), so I´m sorry for that! The next chapters might prove to be better…
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me :)

At thirty, Dean had already lived through more than his fair share of bullshit.

He´d been tortured and killed, kidnapped and beaten, cursed and hexed and forced to eat more salad and rabbit food than any human being should _ever_ feel comfortable with.

His whole goddamn _life_ was one jolly giant clusterfuck of daddy issues and demonic interference, and all of _that_ did not even touch the fact that his own freaking brother was currently determined to charm his way into Dean´s pants by using _every. single. trick_. on Cosmopolitan´s ‘How to get your man’ list.

And people asked him _why_ he was cranky. Seriously.

….

Well, he´d been a hunter for most of his life and for the most part, Dean could handle the pain that came with the job.

He could handle the weird.

He could handle Wesson making a move on him because hey, that was some A+ blackmail material right there. All he had to do was play it cool and wait for Sammy to get his marbles back and then _boom_ – endless fun.

What he most certainly couldn’t handle though, was this kind of crap.

Fuck, their lives had always been weird, but nothing had ever prepared him for the thousand-little-insect-crawling-over-your-skin feeling that reading one of those godforsaken books gave him: barley forty pages in, and he was about ready to claw his eyes out.

Up until today, Dean´d thought that the Drag Queen Incident of `98 had been the most cringe-worthy incident of his life, but this? _So_ much worse.

These innocent looking pages contained everything. _Fucking_ _everything_.

From him munching his way through Sammy´s secret chocolate stash, to private conversations and uncomfortably detailed sex scenes. Feelings he´d never wanted to admit to, memories he´d tried his hardest to forget, fears he´d buried years ago – all of that, all of _himself_ was out there in the open for everyone to read. Word for word, inky blackness on cheap, thin paper.

Most of it was hidden between the lines, veiled by overly-dramatic writing and ridiculous dialogues, but it was _there_ nonetheless.

Dean´d never felt more violated - it was one thing to have a monster dig around in his head – he could punch those assholes, kill them, make them pay - but there was literally _nothing_ he could do to fight a bunch of books.

The only thing keeping him from flipping his shit, was the fact that the series currently ended with his trip downstairs. _And_ that only one or two of them seemed to deal with their childhood and youth – the last thing he needed right now was for Sammy to read a detailed description of Alastair´s Torture 101, or for him to get a deeper insight into Teenage-Dean´s mind. The though alone was enough to make him vaguely nauseous.

Dean slapped the book closed and carelessly threw it on the bed behind him before getting up and joining Wesson in front of the laptop.

Reading about his own damn life was fucking uncomfortable – why people would voluntarily agree to have their lives turned into biographies, was beyond him. No wonder politicians loved that shit - narcissistic douchebags.

Wesson, of course, thought it was fucking hilarious. That would definitely change the day Sam got all his memories back, but right now his brother had no idea that he was the Robin to Dean´s Batman, and was clearly enjoying his misery. The idiot had laughed for ten whole minutes at Dean´s face of pure terror when they´d discovered the obnoxious cover art. Damnit, they _both_ looked like the heroes of one of those historic romance novels. No need for Sam to get all cocky about it.

He clapped a hand on Wesson´s shoulder.

“You find anything?”

Sam grinned up at him and then turned the screen so that Dean could get a closer look.

“Yup, but you won´t like it. You´re a fucking celebrity, man. Those teenage girls are all over you!”

Dean grimaced and read through a few of the comments Sam was pointing out to him – awesome, jailbait discussing his personal life on the internet. Could this get any worse?

“The comic shop guy was right, by the way. Your books are like the low-budget version of Twilight: the fanbase´s small but dedicated and kinda intense…. And _very_ creative, you might wanna stay away from the fanart and fanfiction.”

“What the ever-loving fuck is a fanfiction?”

Sam coughed and shifted uncomfortably.

“Trust me, you don´t want to know. Just… don´t google yourself.”

He pulled up a few other pages.

“I got nothing on that Carver Edlund guy. Pretty sure that´s only his penname, so we might wanna talk to his publisher and see if she can give us more intel. She´s about six hours from here, four and a half if _you´re_ the one who´s driving.”

“Of fucking course, I am. Stop harassing me, Sam, you haven’t earned driving privileges yet. For all I know you´d run her against a tree or into a ditch”

“Whatever, jerk.”

Sam closed the laptop and then turned towards Dean, a million questions in his eyes.

“What about you? You sure that´s your life Edlund´s writing about? Maybe it´s just some werid coincidence…”

“No such thing, Sam. The main storyline seems to fit. Sure, the books skip most of the boring shit like laundry day and stake-outs, and I don´t spend my days staring longingly into the distance, but everything else…. Pretty damn accurate.”

“…Hell?”

Dean shook his head. “ _Leave it_ , Sam.”

He stood up and grabbed his jacket and keys.

“C´mon, get your ass into the car. We need to find this guy and have a nice, long talk about respecting other people´s privacy.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You could have told me, you know.”

Dean glanced over to his right but Sam wasn’t looking at him. His brother´s eyes were fixed on the road, sad smile on his lips, fingers playing with a loose threat on his jeans.

They were speeding down the highway, already two hours into the drive and up until now things had been quiet between them, each of them occupied with their own dark thoughts. Dean had no idea what Wesson´s problem was now. Dude was even worse than Sammy when it came to cryptic sentences and half-assed messages. Jesus, whatever was wrong with a direct approach? Why couldn’t he just cut the crap and talk about what was bothering him, instead of making weird-ass statements?

“Sam. What _the hell_ are you talking about?”

Sam´s smile grew a tad sadder.

“You and your _brother_. I mean, I understand why you didn’t tell me… it´s pretty unusual for siblings to, ah… you _know_? And most people probably wouldn’t understand, but well, anyway. You could at least have mentioned that you´re still hung up on someone else. I´d never had hid on you if I´d known.”

Dean blinked, completely lost. _What_?

“It´s okay, dude. I´m not judging you… I´ve seen what this life is like, and I totally get that you only ever had each other and that it was only natural to – “

“ _Sam_. You are _not_ making sense. Me and my brother were _what_?”

Wesson rolled his eyes.

“Were together.”

“Of fucking course, we were. We´re family, dude. Going our separate ways only ever lead to disaster.”

“No, you idiot. You were _together_. As in - a couple. Screwing around. Bumping uglies… you know, _fucking_.”

Dean´s brain froze.

“Don´t look at me like that, man, it doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines of those books. There´s so much pinning and sexual tension in there, it´s giving _me_ second-hand longing.”

He gently patted Dean´s arm.

“I´m gonna back off now… And sorry again for, you know, being all over you when you´re clearly not ready yet. I had no intention of making things this awkward between us.”

Okay, this was fifty different kinds of fucked up.

“Sam.” Dean croaked, and promptly stopped to clear his throat. When the fuck had he lost control over this stupid conversation?!

“ _Sam_. I don’t know what you´re talking about, but I _did not fuck my own brother_.”

Jesus, saying that out loud sounded _awful_.

“It´s… we were never like _that_. Never. I wouldn´t – _Dude_ , I´m not even gay, for fuck´s sake! And even if I were, my own freaking _brother_? _Seriously_?”

Wesson looked at him with narrowed eyes and then simply shrugged.

“You kill monster for a living, man. In my book that´s freakier than fucking your brother.”

Holy fucking shit, Sammy! What was he supposed to do with _that_ piece of information?

“Yeah, well, I _didn’t_.” Dean snapped. “I´m screwed up to hell and back, but I´m not _that_ sick.”

 Fucking Sam and his fucking nosiness.

“Whatever you say, Dean.”

Wesson clearly didn’t believe him – that right there was a perfect copy of Sam´s ‘man-up-and-tell-me-the-truth, jerk’ face.

“I´m not buying the gay thing, though. I´ve seen you flirt with men, you do that all of the time.”

“Of _course_ you´ve seen me flirt with men! That´s my fucking job, bitch! I´m _hot_. People dig me. I _use_ _that_ to get what I want. It´s not my fucking fault that this is how this world works, man, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean that I´d fuck everyone I´m flirting with. Grow the fuck up!”

Sam eyed him speculatively, still not buying it. Goddamn it, Dean was _so_ gonna kill that Edlund guy!

“And since we´re already having this discussion: You and me, Sam? Not gonna happen. So stop strutting around as if you´re on fucking Baywatch and lay off the skinny jeans before you hurt yourself. I don´t care if there´s a baseball bat down your pants or not, I´m not gonna go near your dick either way.”

That, shut him up. At least for about five seconds.

 “…. If you ever wanted to experiment…”

“Sam? Shut the hell up.”

Dean turned his music to the maximum possible volume and accelerated the car. Bobby seriously needed to speed up his work on that damn counter spell, he needed his brother back. Right the fuck now.

 

* * *

 

 

“So… Prophets, huh?”

Dean grunted something vaguely affirmative and flopped face first onto the bed, dirty boots and all. Sam frowned, but decided not to comment on it - would probably have been fucking useless anyway. Instead he soldiered on.

“Thought they´d be more impressive…. You know, someone awe inspiring and charismatic. A _leader_ \- not some scrawny dude in a bathrobe. No wonder the number of atheist is on the rise.”

Winchester only snorted and shoved his pillow into a position that allowed him to breathe.

So they were playing it like that, then.

Sam sighed and grabbed the last beer from the fridge, hesitating for just a moment before shrugging and opening it anyway. If Dean wanted beer, he could go get his own.

He sat down on his own bed, silently sipping his beer and waiting.

Minutes ticked by.

Sam finished his beer. Toed his boots off. Picked at the giant hole adorning his left knee... He really needed a new pair of jeans.

Finally, Dean´s head popped up.

“Dude. Stop staring at me! `s creepy.”

“Then stop ignoring my questions and tell me what you know. You can´t just keep this shit from me, Dean!”

“There´s _nothing_ to tell!”

Sam snorted in disbelieve and shot up from the bed to start pacing around the room, hands balled to fists in agitation.

“And what about that demon chick, Lilith? All that cryptic crap about demon blood? The freaking _Apocalypse_? How is _that_ not important?”

Dean muttered something unintelligible, but rolled to his back and sat up to stare at him accusingly.

“I´m fucking handling it, okay? I told you everything you need to know right now, but I´m not gonna drag you deeper into this, Wesson. Not if I have another choice.”

Wesson. Great, now he was _Wesson_ again.

 “You don’t, though. That demon bitch nearly got the jump on me, because you didn’t deem it important to tell me that she apparently wants my head on a stick!”

He stepped closer, right in front of the smaller hunter. Any other day, the anger and heat in Dean´s eyes would´ve been enough to have his cock twitch in his jeans, but tonight he was too damn frustrated to let himself be distracted that easily.

“What the hell is going on, Dean? Tell me. Maybe I can help – or, at the very least, not screw everything up even more.”

“I told you more than enough already.”

“ _The fuck_ you did! I´m sick of being treated like a goddamn child!”

Dean shot up from the bed, crowding into him, faces only mere inches apart.

“Then stop fucking acting like one! You wanna be a big, bad hunter? Stop _whining_! You think knowledge is power, but it also makes you a frigging target, and there´s things out there that you can´t even begin to understand. Hell, _I´m_ only bullshitting my way through this whole shitstorm.”

“And I´m right in the middle of it, aren’t I? I don´t understand how or why, but I have a part in this! Cas, Chuck, that demon chick, _you_ – you all know more than you let on. So, tell me, Dean. Help me understand!”

Dean stared at him, eyes searching for _something_ , deflating when he obviously couldn’t find it. He lowered his head and stepped away, dragging a tired hand down his face.

“Just leave it, Sam. _Please_. I´m not trying to be an asshole here, but that´s a whole can of worms you really don´t want me to open. Later, okay? When we´re at Bobby´s. We´ll figure it out once we´re there.”

Yeah well, Sam was far from done with that topic.

“What about Lilith? Her fucked up deal?”

“Demons lie, Sam”

Winchester turned away, obviously done with the discussion but Sam was faster, grabbing his biceps and holding him in place.

“She didn’t, though, did she? I saw the way you looked at her, Dean. That offer was genuine.”

Dean shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter. We didn’t take her up on it.”

“Doesn´t – Dean! We could´ve stopped this? Stopped the _Apocalypse_!”

He couldn’t believe this!

“Two days ago, you didn’t even have a clue that the apocalypse was a thing!

“Yeah, but now I do! We should´ve taken her up on the offer! Now everyone´s going to die because -“

“We don’t know that for sure, Sam. Lilith´s not the only big fugly that has their fingers in this mess. Making a deal with her wouldn´t´ve changed _anything_.”

“It would´ve been worth a try.”

Dean was moving before Sam had time to react, body crashing into his and slamming him into the wall.

 “I´m not going to sacrifice you, Sam, not aga _-_ …I just won’t, okay? I _can´t_. There´s gotta be a different way. I´m going to fix this, I swear, but not like this. Not with another fucking deal.”

They were close, so fucking close, Dean´s breath hot on Sam´s face and eyes dark and for an endless moment, Sam was not sure if he was going to be kissed or punched.

Then, someone out in the parking lot laughed, the sound echoing in the room, and the moment was broken. Dean´s fingers uncurled from his shirt and the hunter backed off, turning and collecting his keys from the bed as he made his way to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“ _Out_. I need a fucking drink.” Dean grabbed his leather jacket and shrugged it on. “Go get some sleep, Sam. Early start tomorrow”

With that, he was gone, door closing behind him with a bang, Sam´s empty beer bottle bursting into a thousand pieces against the solid wood.


End file.
